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Maxwell Q. Klinger
Corporal ('''later Sergeant) Maxwell Q. Klinger 'is a character from the ''M*A*S*H television series played by Jamie Farr. A Lebanese-American hailing from Toledo, Ohio, Klinger serves as an orderly/corpsman (and later company clerk) assigned to the 4077th M*A*S*H unit during the Korean War. The character's original defining characteristic is his numerous attempts to gain a psychiatric discharge from the army, typically through being judged mentally unfit for service (under "Section Eight") or for other reasons. To this end, he would habitually wear women's clothing and engage in other "crazy" stunts. After replacing Radar as company clerk he gives up his discharge attempts and in Season 10 (Promotion Commotion) is promoted to sergeant. Family Background Klinger was the first main character introduced on M*A*S*H to not have appeared in either Richard Hooker's original novel or the subsequent film. Originally introduced as a bit character in Chief Surgeon Who? as a simple gag of a soldier who wanted out of the Army and was trying to fake his way to a "Section Eight" medical discharge, he made such an overwhelming impression on the producers and audience that he became a recurring character throughout the season, and by the second season was a regular member of the cast. Klinger is fiercely proud of his family, and of his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, which he regularly mentions (including references to Tony Packo's Cafe, an actual restaurant in Toledo). He is also an enthusiastic Toledo Mud Hens baseball fan (a real-life minor league baseball team) as was often seen wearing a "Mud Hens" cap (Note that the cap worn by the actor is not a Mud Hens cap but actually a Texas Rangers cap as the costume department couldn't find an authentic Mud Hens cap for the character). He also is fond of Cuban cigars made in New Jersey by Puerto Ricans. His father and grandfather were olive pickers; likewise his father had a sharp temper and a left hook, and is a champion bowler. In regard to his childhood-in one episode he admits he meet his 1st wife Laverne while both were juvenile delinquents engaged in theft; later in another episode, Klinger admits his pre army occupation was hustling pool. (Your Retention, Please). Klinger's Uncles Main article: Klinger's many uncles One of Klinger's running gags in the series was his numerous uncles They would give him connections for many things or serve as a source of advice for many situations. One almost got him into West Point, but he couldn't pass the entrance exam. Another uncle sent Klinger fabric samples from when he himself attempted to get out of the service. During the series run he mentioned thirteen different uncles, the most prominent of these were his Uncles Gus, Amos and Abdul, the latter of which he wrote to reflecting on his many failed attempts to get out of the army. In Dear Uncle Abdul, Klinger, in his letter, remarks on all the unusual things going on in camp involving the officers. He ends the letter by saying "You see, Unc? It's no wonder I never got a Section Eight; there's nothing special about me. Everybody here is crazy!" Klinger at the 4077th MASH In the early episodes, a running gag was Klinger's endless efforts to get discharged from the Army, mainly by by cross-dressing. Viewers eventually began to look forward to what new outfit he would wear next or what other ploy he would attempt. But to his frustration, his commanding officers were never fooled. B.J. Hunnicutt once remarked that Klinger is actually the only sane one by always trying to get out, while the rest of the camp are crazy for accepting their situation and making the most of it, as Joseph Heller would also observe in Catch 22. Col. Blake and, later Col. Potter, largely tolerated Klinger's antics because of their entertainment value, but otherwise Klinger is a conscientious, reliable orderly who never lets his schemes interfere with his duties. For example, he volunteered to join the party to go beyond enemy lines to recover casualties in Rainbow Bridge. In Aid Station, he is sent with Margaret and Hawkeye to a Battalion aid station. There, he performs duties which would normally be done by a surgical nurse, while remaining steady under artillery fire, earning praise from both Margaret and Hawkeye. In They Call the Wind Korea, he is the one who cajoles Winchester into saving a Greek soldier when Winchester thought the conditions were too difficult and the equipment too primitive. In Season 8, he replaces Radar as company clerk with reasonable seriousness, developing a reputation as a scrounger and eventually getting promoted to Sergeant. Klinger also performs a near pitch-perfect impression/impersonation of Colonel Potter, which he uses several times to manipulate others into giving the unit supplies or information that requires the Colonel's direct approval (which is often hard to obtain, since he is frequently in surgery when needed on the phone). By the end of the Korean War, Klinger had fallen in love with and married a native Korean woman, Soon Lee (Rosalind Chao). In the final episode, Klinger reverses his longtime goal to leave Korea, and decides to stay to help search for her relatives (inspired by real US troops choosing to stay in Korea after the war). In the short-lived spin-off, After M*A*S*H, soon after the end of the war, Klinger, having found Soon Lee's family, returns to the United States with Soon Lee, but he has been disowned and ostracized by his own family for marrying a Korean and finds his hometown unwelcoming to a mixed-race couple. In desperation, Klinger resorts to petty crime to make ends meet, but he is arrested and put on trial. Klinger contacts Colonel Potter seeking help, and a deal is struck, whereby in exchange for the charges being dropped, Klinger and Soon Lee will relocate to River Bend, Missouri where Klinger becomes Colonel Potter's assistant at General Pershing VA Hospital ("General General"), and also studies for his Civil Service Exam while he and Soon Lee expect their first child. The Klinger Collection Main article: The Klinger Collection One of the main ways Klinger would try to prove himself mentally unfit for service was to habitually wear women's clothing. Although this was as a scam to get out of the army, he took the role seriously and developed a great deal of expertise in ladies fashion and became extremely proud of his "Klinger Collection". Besides buying outfits, he also made his own, investing money and effort buying the best materials from overseas. He had a sewing machine in his tent as well as tailor's mannequins. He was sometimes consulted by the nurses and even Margaret on fashion matters. At least three times Klinger loses his entire "Klinger Collection" of dresses: * First, when he thought there was a ceasefire and thus he didn't need them for Section 8 anymore * Second, when he was sent to a Battalion Aid Station with Hawkeye and Houlihan, Radar gave them away when he thought Klinger had been killed * The third time time was when the 4077th had bugged out to a new location; he is cajoled by Colonel Potter into trading them to Korean prostitutes so the MASH can use an abandoned school building as a new OR. Eventually, Klinger gives up wearing women's clothing, a change demanded by Farr because he felt his children would be ashamed of his appearing in women's clothing week after week on national television, and the views of the Klinger Collection became more rare from Season 8 onwards. The "Klingerpatra" costume in April Fools is one of the more memorable late season outfits, with his picnic suit in Season 9 Taking the Fifth probably his last. Other ploys to gain a discharge Main article: Klinger's ploys to get out of the army Besides wearing womens clothing, Klinger also tried other ploys to get out of the army, and not necessarily by way of a "Section Eight"; some were aimed at getting a hardship discharge on compassionate grounds, or were mere attempts at outright desertion. These ploys also invariably failed, mostly because his commanders could see through them or outwit him. Colonel Blake kept a thick file of bogus letters in which Klinger claimed numerous family quandaries, culminating in one where one half of his family was dying while the other half was pregnant. Some of his ploys came close to succeeding. In one of the closest from None Like it Hot, he wears a body/water reducing suit during a heatwave; Potter agreed to give Klinger a discharge if he could wear it for 24 hours, but the heat is too much even for Klinger and he gives up with only an hour left to go. Klinger also nearly got a Section 8 when Majors Burns and Houlihan, exasperated with his antics, recommend his release,. But when Major Freedman recommends a discharge only if Klinger acts like a transvestite for the rest of his life, Klinger refuses. At one point, Klinger's hearing is damaged by an exploding land mine (caused by contraction of the ground due to the extreme winter conditions), but the injury is only temporary. When Col. Potter tells him deafness would have got him a medical discharge, he immediately tries to fake a relapse, which Potter, of course, doesn't buy. Actual Crises The downside of Klinger's numerous phony attempts at getting discharged was that nobody would take him seriously when he was faced with a genuine predicament. In the season 6 episode Mail Call Three, Klinger gets a Dear John letter from Laverne, who has dumped him for someone else back home; Klinger begs Potter to contact the Red Cross to help him go home, but Potter refuses. Later, when everyone else claims he's just making up another phony story, he angrily rebukes them, tearing at his clothes and shouting "All of this is phony, but my wife's leaving me isn't! She took my allotment checks, built up a nice bank account, and now she's found another guy!" He very nearly deserts on his own to get back home and straighten things out, but at the last minute he realizes that Laverne's dumping him is her loss, not his. In Your Retention Please, Klinger gets another Dear John letter, again from Laverne; after hearing that she was leaving her latest husband (the one she left Klinger for), Klinger entrusted his best friend Gus Nagy to monitor the situation and keep Laverne and her husband at odds with one another, but in the end, Laverne decided she was going to marry Gus, again discouraging Klinger. in the season 7 episode Baby, It's Cold Outside, Klinger's hearing is damaged by an exploding land mine (caused by contraction of the ground due to the extreme winter conditions), but the injury is only temporary. When Col. Potter tells him deafness would have got him a medical discharge, he immediately tries to fake a relapse, which Potter, of course, doesn't buy. In the season 9 episode The Red/White Blues, Klinger begins to suffer harsh symptoms from Primaquine (which was sent to the camp by HQ in place of Chloroquine), but Hawkeye, Margaret and B.J. think Klinger is just slacking until Private Goldman started showing the exact same symptoms from the medicine. Get rich quick schemes Main article: Klinger's get rich quick schemes In between trying to get out of the army, Klinger also indulges in various enterprises in an effort to make some quick money. Most of these came to nothing, but some, like in Too Many Cooks, at least brought great enjoyment to the camp personnel and others, while others either resulted in his embarrassment or costing him money, particularly in A War for All Seasons, ''in which he and Winchester lost a large baseball wager to the rest of the camp. In Letters, Klinger believes he will be raking in the dough after purchasing two chinchillas from a soldier passing through camp; Klinger is dreaming of starting a chinchilla farm and selling the offspring, but his plans are hoodwinked when Winchester points out to him that the two chinchillas he bought were both male. In the Season 9 episode Depressing News, Klinger tries his hand at publishing a camp newspaper called "M*A*S*H Notes", prematurely expecting a huge bonanza , but as editor-in-chief he bungles and mixes up some of the feature stories, particularly Margaret and Winchester's stories, causing his news business to fold. Reputation as a scrounger To the camp's credit, Klinger developed a reputation as an expert scrounger. The most prominent example of this was in part 2 of Good-Bye Radar, during which he intercepted a call for Radar from Sergeant Hondo McKee at I-Corps supply wanting to trade a generator for a case of scotch. Right after he arrives at supply, a major arrives demanding the same generator, ''and unknowingly blurts out in front of Klinger that his unit stole a back-up generator from a MASH unit; doing some quick thinking, Klinger poses as the major's driver and blackmails the clerk at the shipping office to give him the generator, and Klinger returns to a hero's welcome at the 4077th. In Cementing Relationships, when the surgeons decided they needed to pave the floor in the OR, Klinger makes a few phone calls, pretending that a visiting general was demanding a shipment of cement to make a barbecue. Another more personal example was in Where There's a Will, There's a War, in which Hawkeye bequeaths his prized Hawaiian shirt to Klinger after he finds out that Klinger had traded a whole Lebanese salami for a issue of Life magazine in which there were numerous photos of Hawkeye's home state of Maine. Other attributes Although Klinger does not seem to possess a great deal of academic intelligence, he does possess a great deal of practical intelligence, added to which he shows an occasional ability to manipulate others, particularly Winchester, though his plans do not always go well. Although his hustling seems to indicate a devious side to Klinger, he also has a very good heart and tries to do the right thing when confronted with a moral problem. He tells Col. Potter about a nurse who was drinking too much and almost gave a person the wrong type blood. He shows generosity toward the Korean orphans at Christmas time. In Dear Dad, Klinger is walking through Post-Op wearing a bandana on his neck, a gift and good luck charm from his mother (which is seen only in this episode), but when Maj. Burns orders him to remove it because he wants it, Klinger refuses, explaining why, but Burns refuses to listen and makes Klinger drop his tray of medical supplies and then blames him for it, at which point Klinger angrily knocks Burns out, but Father Mulcahy covers for him when the MPs show up. Klinger's respect for his mother is established in several episodes. She does not speak or read English, only Arabic. Fearing she would worry herself sick if she knew he had been sent to Korea, he has told her he was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he actually served his training. In The Party, Mrs. Klinger reveals that she knew her son was in Korea all along. Other examples of his practical intelligence include him tricking Hawkeye and B.J. into giving him a three-day pass, and his suggestion to Winchester that he should treat Col. Baldwin with kindness in order to get Baldwin to transfer Winchester back to Tokyo General. But sometimes even his charity in scrounging gets him into trouble. In The Yalu Brick Road, his deal for Thanksgiving turkeys results in nearly everyone getting food poisoning, including eventually Klinger himself. Klinger made so many attempts at being sick in order to get discharged that one time, when he developed anemia due to a side effect of Primaquine, the MASH staff refused to believe he was really ill, until another member of the staff started showing the exact same symptoms. Trivia *Once, in answer to Winchester's bigoted question, "How would you feel if your sister were marrying a swarthy, dark-haired, olive-picker?" Klinger responds that he has a sister who did just that. She is mentioned only one other time when Klinger says "Hello" to his sister "Yvonne" in the Clete Roberts interview episode. Klinger's mother and grandmother also married olive pickers. *Klinger's first wife was Laverne Esposito from the Hungarian side of Toledo. He never sees Laverne while they are married, since they marry over the radio; Henry denied him leave because of his continual efforts to get out of his military service (Springtime) - She asks him for a divorce - 6.20 Mail Call Three - Later, she moves on with his best friend - 9.7 "Your Retention, Please" *Winchester once confessed to being so bored, he wanted to look at Klinger's cousin Hakim's wedding pictures. * Both Klinger and Winchester have the same blood type. However, in an earlier episode, Klinger says he is B positive, while Winchester states he is AB negative. *It was never established what the "Q" stood for in Maxwell Q. Klinger. *Series writer Larry Gelbart stated during the M*A*S*H* 30th Anniversary Reunion special that Klinger's antics were inspired by stories of Lenny Bruce attempting to dodge his own military service by dressing as a WAVES member. *Farr noticed the women's wardrobe in his dressing area on his arrival, and thought at first he'd be sharing the space with a woman. Finding out the clothing was for his character, he was surprised, but took it in stride. *Early filmed scenes, with Farr performing in a sissy way, didn't work. Farr suggested his own vision of the character: Klinger was heterosexual, but crazy, thinking it was normal for him to dress like a woman, but behave like a man. This version of Klinger clicked on camera and with the TV audience. *The dog tags Klinger wore on the show were Jamie Farr's own from when he served in Korea in the United States Army. *Besides wearing dresses for a Section 8, another running joke is Klinger's feud with his mortal enemy, supply Sgt Zelmo Zale: **In 5.18, Klinger and Zale are manipulated into a boxing match by Frank Burns, but it's Burns who gets a K.O. from both Klinger and Zale. **In 5.20, when Zale makes a nasty remark about the Toledo Mudhens, Klinger loses his temper and hits Zale, for which he gets KP duty for a whole month. *In one episode (5.12), Klinger states why he has such a large nose: "I came from a long line of short nosed people. One day my grandfather's camel spit in the eye of the village witch. Ever since then we've been growing them like this" (points to his nose). *Klinger appears to be Catholic during the first few seasons (mentioning a family priest, as well as the practice of praying to St. Anthony, and observing Lent), then at least once being mentioned as an atheist (when Father Mulcahy asks why Klinger is praying when he is an atheist, Klinger replies that he gave it up for Lent). In later episodes, Klinger has been heard to invoke Allah, indicating he follows the Islamic faith. In the show ''AfterMASH'', he remains Muslim; he said that his wife prayed to Buddha while he prayed to Allah for Father Mulcahy's recovery. *The house that Klinger is born in is at 1215 N. Michigan St., Toledo, Ohio 43604. *Klinger knows how to mix concrete and the basic rules for using it, as seen in (9.3). Quotes *(Klinger to Sgt. Zale) Zale, if my dog had a face like yours, I'd shave its butt and teach it to walk backwards. *(After Maj. Winchester asks Klinger to spell caution) "C-A-W..." (and then a few minutes later) "K-A-W?" *(When Colonel Tucker walks into Klinger's office and sees him in an Egyptian dress and is told he is discharged) "How can you shame me? I'll be the laughing stock of the Nile." *(to a drunken B.J. after they shared a massive drinking binge, united in their collective jealousy and hatred of Radar, who has just gone home) "Probably does, but I bet my stupid "clumpany cerk" screwed it up." Category:M*A*S*H television series characters Category:AfterMASH TV series characters Category:Enlisted men of the 4077th Category:M*A*S*H TV Series Main Characters